Chapter XX: Farther Soundings

It was not likely that a man of George Wainwright's intelligence and habits of observation could remain long domesticated in a household like that of the Derinzys', without speedily reading the characteristics of its various members.

In a very little time after his arrival, the young man--whose manners were so quiet and sedate as to lead Captain Derinzy to hint to his wife that he thought Wainwright rather a muff--had reckoned up his host and knew exactly the amount of vanity, silliness, and ignorance which so largely swayed the estimable gentleman; had gauged Mrs. Derinzy's scheming worldliness, knew why it originated and at what it aimed; had thoroughly solved the problem, so difficult to all others, of Mrs. Stothard's position in the house; and knew exactly the character of the malady under which Annette was suffering.

He ought to have known more about Annette than about anybody else, for nine-tenths of his time--all, indeed, that he could spare from the somewhat assiduous attentions of his host--were given to her. He walked with her, made long explorations of the neighbouring cliffs, long expeditions inland among the lovely Devonshire lanes, lovelier still with the fiery hue of autumn, and even induced her to join him and Paul in sundry boat-excursions, where, well wrapped up in rugs and tarpaulins, she lay on the flush-deck of the little fishing-smack, half frightened, half filled with childlike glee at her novel experience.

Paul had often laughed and said to their common associates, "When old George is caught, you may depend upon it, it will be a very desperate case."

And "old George" was caught now, Paul thought, and thought rightly: the delicacy, the good nature, the sweet womanly graces of the girl showing ever and anon between her sufferings--for during George's stay at Beachborough, Annette had been free from any regular attack, yet from time to time there were threatenings of the coming storm which were perfectly perceptible to his experienced eye--nay, perhaps the very fact of the malady under which she laboured, and the position in which she was placed, had had strong influence over George Wainwright's honest heart. As for Paul, he was so thoroughly astonished at the change which had taken place in his cousin since George's arrival, and at the wonderful pains and trouble which George himself took to interest and amuse Annette, that this wonderment entirely filled so much of his time as was not devoted to thinking of Daisy. He wondered and pondered, and at last the conviction grew strong upon him, that George must be in love.

At first he laughed at the idea. The sober, steady, almost grave man, who had such large experience of life, and who yet had managed to steer clear, so far as Paul knew, of anything like a flirtation. Flirtation, indeed, would be the last thing to which his friend would stoop, "when old George is caught." Something, perhaps, also--"for pride attends us still"--was due to the fact that Annette always showed the greatest desire for his company, and undisguised delight at his attention and admiration. Never in the course of her previous life had the girl met with anyone who seemed so completely to comprehend her, whose talk she could so readily understand, whose manner was so completely fascinating, and yet somehow always commanded her respect. She despised her uncle, she disliked her aunt, and hated Mrs. Stothard though she feared her; but in the slow and painful workings of that brain she felt that if at those--those dreadful times when semi-blankness fell upon her, and her perception of all that was going on was dim, and obscure, and confused--if at such a time George Wainwright were to order her to do anything in opposition to the promptings of that devil, which on those occasions possessed her, she felt she should be powerless to disobey him.

"I can't make it out, George; upon my soul, I can't," said Paul, as they were walking along the edge of the cliffs one morning smoking their pipes after breakfast.

"What is it that puzzles your great brain, and that prompts to such strong utterances?" asked George, laughing.

"You know perfectly well what I mean. You needn't try to be deceitful in your old age," said Paul; "for deceit is a thing which I don't think you would easily learn, and at all events does not go well with hair which is turning white at the temples, and a beard which is beginning to grizzle, Mr. Wainwright. You know perfectly well that I am alluding to the attentions which you are paying to my cousin, Miss Derinzy. And I should be glad to know, sir," continued Paul, vainly endeavouring to suppress the broad grin which was spreading over his face, "I should be glad to know, sir, how you reconcile your conduct with your notions of honour, knowing, as you perfectly well do, that that lady is my affianced bride."

"Don't be an ass, Paul," said George, smiling in his turn. "I dispute both your assertions, especially the last. The lady is nothing of the kind."

"No, poor dear child, that she certainly isn't. And I think on the whole that it is a very good thing that my affections are engaged in another quarter; for I am perfectly sure that, however much I might have wished it, Annette would never have had anything to say to me. I endeavoured to make my mother understand that, when she first talked to me on the subject when you first came down here; but she seemed to look upon Annette's wishes as having very little to do with the matter."

"Mrs. Derinzy's state of health possibly makes her take an exceptional view of affairs," said George, looking hard at his friend.

"Well, I declare I don't know about her state of health," said Paul. "I confess that, beyond a little peevishness, which is partly constitutional, I suppose, and partly brought on by having lived so many years with the governor--good old fellow the governor, but an awful nuisance to have to be with constantly--I don't see that there is much the matter with my mother. Have you ever heard your father say anything about her illness, George?"

"My father is remarkably reticent in professional matters," said George. "I have never heard him speak about any illness in this house."

"Oh, of course, it was only about my mother that he could say anything," said Paul; "for the governor never has anything the matter with him, except a touch of sciatica now and then in his game leg; and Annette's seems to be--you know--one of those chronic cases which never come to much, and which no doctor can ever do any good to."

"I suppose you won't be sorry to get back to town, Master Paul?"

"I suppose you will be sorry to leave here, Master George? No; indeed, I am rather glad the end of my leave is coming on; no intended bad compliment to you, old fellow; your stay here has been the greatest delight to me; but the fact is, I am getting rather anxious about that young person in London, and shall be very glad to see her again."

George looked up at him with a comical face.

"You don't mean to say that since Theseus's departure, Ariadne has----"

"I mean to say nothing of the sort," said Paul, turning very red. "Daisy is the best girl in the world; but I don't know, somehow I don't think her letters have been quite as jolly lately--the last two, I mean; there is something in them which I can't exactly make out, and there is not something in them which I have generally found there; so that after all, as I said before, I shall be glad when I get back."

"Has Mrs. Derinzy said anything more to you on the subject which you wrote to me about?" asked George, with a very bad attempt at indifference.

"No," said Paul; "she has begun it once or twice, but something has always intervened."

"Have you any idea that she has given up her intention of getting you to marry Miss Annette?"

"I fear not; I fear that her intention remains just the same, and that I shall have an immense deal of trouble in combating it. You see, events have changed since your arrival here, my dear George. But speaking dispassionately together, I don't see what line I can take with my mother in declining to propose for Annette, except the straightforward one that I won't do it. It seems highly ridiculous for a man in a government office, and with only the reversion of a sufficiently snug, but certainly not overwhelming, income in prospect, to refuse the chance of an enormous fortune, and the hand of a very pretty girl, who, as Mr. Swiveller says, has been expressly growing up for me."

"Yes," said George, reflectively, "I quite see what you mean; it will be a difficult task. But you intend to carry it through?"

"Most decidedly. Nothing would induce me to break with--with that young person in London; and if she were to break with me, God knows it would half kill me. I don't think I could solace myself by taking a wife with a lot of money, even if I could be such a ruffian as to attempt it."

So from this and fifty other conversations of a similar nature--for the theme was one which always engrossed his mind, and was constantly rising to his tongue--George Wainwright knew that there would be no obstacle to his love for Annette so far as Paul Derinzy was concerned. That young man had no care for his cousin even without the knowledge of the dreadful secret, which must be known to him some day, and the revelation of which would inevitably settle his resolution to decline a compliance with his mother's prayer.

That dreadful secret, always up-rearing its ghastly form in the path which otherwise was so smooth and so straight for George Wainwright's happiness! All his cogitations came to one invariable result--there could be no other explanation of it all. The illness which she herself could not explain, which came upon her from time to time, and during which she sank away from ordinary into mere blank existence, emerging therefrom with no knowledge of what she had gone through; the mysterious woman, half nurse, half keeper, who watched so constantly and so grimly over her? the manner in which all questions touching upon the girl's illness were shirked by every member of the household; the delusion so assiduously kept up, under which Mrs. Derinzy and not her niece was made to appear as the sufferer; above all, the constant visits of his father--all these proved to George that the disorder under which Annette Derinzy laboured was insanity, and nothing else.

And the more he thought of it, the more terrified was he at the idea. Familiarity with mental disease, intercourse with those labouring under it, had by no means softened its terrors to George Wainwright. True, he had no physical fear in connection with the mere vulgar fright which is usually felt with "mad people." He had no experience of that; but he had seen so much of the gradual growth of the disorder; had so often marked the helpless, hopeless state into which those suffering under it fell--silently indeed, but surely--that he had come to regard it with greater terror than the fiercest fever or the deadliest plague.

And now, when for the first time in his life he had fixed his affections on a girl who seemed likely to return his passion, and who in every other way was calculated to form the charm of his home and the happiness of his fireside, he had to acknowledge to himself that she was afflicted with this dreadful malady. It was impossible to palter with the question; he had tried to do so a thousand times; but his strong common sense would not be juggled with. And there the dread fact remained--the girl he loved was frequently liable to attacks of insanity. He must face that, look at it steadily, and see what could be done. Could she be cured?

Ah! how well he knew the futility of such a hope! How many instances had he seen in his father's house of patients whose disease was not of nearly such long standing as Annette's, had indeed only just begun, and who were in a few days, or weeks, or months at the farthest, to be restored, with all their faculties calmed and renewed, to their anxious friends!--and how many of them remained there now, or had been removed to other asylums, in the hope that change might effect that restoration which skill and science had failed in bringing about!

The last day of their stay had arrived, and on the morrow George was to accompany his friend back to London. The Captain was out for his usual ramble, Paul was closeted with his mother, and George was sitting in the little room which, owing to the few books possessed by the family gathered together in it, was dignified by the name of a "study," and which overlooked a splendid view of the bay. He was standing at the window, gazing out over the broad expanse of water, thinking how strangely the usually calm-flowing current of his life had been vexed and ruffled since his arrival there, wondering what steps he could take towards the solution of the difficulty under which he laboured, and what would be the final end of it all, when he heard a door close gently behind him, and looking round, saw Annette by his side.

"I am so glad I've found you, Mr. George," she said, looking up at him frankly, and putting out her hand (she always called him "Mr. George" now; she had told him she hated to use his surname, it reminded her of disagreeable things), "I am so glad I've found you. Mrs. Stothard reminded me that it was your last day here, and said I ought to make the most of it."

"Mrs. Stothard said that?" asked George, with uplifted eyebrows; "I would sooner it had been your own idea, Miss Annette."

"The truth is, I think I am a little vexed at the notion of your going," said the girl.

"Come, that is much better," said George, with a smile.

"No, no, I mean what I say; I am very, very sorry that you are going away." As she said this her voice, apparently involuntarily, dropped into a soft caressing tone, and her eyes were fixed on him with an earnest expression of regard.

"It is very pleasing to me to be able to know that my presence or absence causes you any emotion," said George.

"I have been so happy since you have been here," said the girl; "you are so different from anybody else I have ever met before. You seem to understand me so much better than any one else, to take so much more interest in me, and to be so much more intelligible yourself; your manner is different from that of other people; and there is something in the tone of your voice which I cannot explain, but which perfectly thrills me."

"I declare you will make me vain, Annette."

"That would be impossible; you could not be vain, Mr. George--you are far too sensible and good. It is singular to see how wonderfully well I have been since you have been here. On the morning after your arrival I felt as though I were going to have one of my wretched attacks, and Mrs. Stothard said it was because I had talked too much, and been too much excited the previous evening. But it passed off; and though I don't think I have ever talked so much to anyone in my life before, and certainly was never so interested in anyone's conversation, there has been no recurrence of it, and I have been perfectly well."

The bright look had passed away from George's face, and he was regarding her now with earnest eyes.

"If I thought that had actually been accomplished by my presence, I should be happy indeed; more happy in expectation of the future than in thinking over the past."

"In expectation of the future!" repeated the girl, pondering over the words. "Oh yes, surely; you are going away now, but you will come again to walk with me, and to talk with me; and you are only going away for a time. How strange I never thought of this before."

As she said these words she crept closer to him; and he, bending down, took her small white hand between his, and looked into her face with a long gaze of deep compassion and great love.

"Yes, Annette," he said, "I will come again, and I hope before very long. You must understand that this time, these past few weeks, have been quite as happy to me as you say they have been to you; that if you have found me different from anyone you have ever known, I, in my turn, have never seen anyone like you--anyone in whom I could take such interest, for whom I could do so much."

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it tenderly, and at that moment the door opened, and Paul entered hurriedly. He gave a short low whistle as he marked the group before him, then advancing hurriedly, he said:

"George, it is all over, my boy; the storm we have been expecting so long has burst at last. My mother and I have just had a very bad quarter of an hour together."

During the foregoing conversation Mrs. Stothard, sitting in her room, heard the sound of the spring-bell which was suspended over her bed; the handle of this bell was in Mrs. Derinzy's apartments, and it was only used under exceptional circumstances, such as at times of Annette's illness, or when Mrs. Derinzy required instant communication with the nurse.

Mrs. Stothard heard the sound, but seemed in no way greatly influenced thereby; she looked up very calmly, saying to herself, "I suppose some climax has arrived; the departure of this young man was sure to bring it about. She has been fidgety lately, I have noticed, at the constant attention Mr. Wainwright has paid to Annette, and at the evident delight with which the girl has received the attentions. That bids fair to go exactly as I could have wished it. But there is some hitch in the other arrangement, I fear, from the little I could overhear of what he said to his friend the other day about Fanny; it must have been about Fanny, although he called her by some other name which I couldn't catch. He seemed nervously anxious about her, and appears to think that his absence from town has weakened her affection for him. That ought not to be, and that is not at all like Fanny's tactics; though there is something wrong, I fear, for I have not heard from her for some time, and her last letter was scarcely satisfactory. Yes, yes," she added impatiently, as the bell sounded again, "I am coming. It seems impossible for you, Mrs. Derinzy, to bear the burden of your trouble alone, even for five minutes."

When she entered the room, she found Mrs. Derinzy lying on the sofa with her head buried in the pillow; she was moaning and sobbing hysterically, and rocking her body to and fro.

"Are you ill?" asked Mrs. Stothard, calmly, as she took up her position at the end of the sofa, and surveyed her mistress without any apparent emotion.

"Yes, very ill, very ill indeed--half broken and crushed," cried Mrs. Derinzy. "It is too hard, Martha, it is too hard to have to go through what I have suffered, and to have all one's hopes blighted by the wilfulness of one for whom I have toiled and slaved so hard and so long."

"You mean Mr. Paul," said Mrs. Stothard. "I suppose that, notwithstanding my strong advice to the contrary, you have persisted in your determination, and asked him, before leaving to return to London, to give his answer about your project?"

"Yes," sobbed Mrs. Derinzy, "I have. I had him in here just now, and I went over it all again. I told him how, when I first heard of that ridiculous will which his uncle Paul had made, I determined that the fortune which ought to have been left to my boy, should become his somehow or other; how I had decided upon the marriage with Annette; how for all these years I had worked to compass it and bring it about: and how, now the time had arrived when the marriage ought to take place----"

"You didn't tell him anything about Annette's illness?" asked Mrs. Stothard, interrupting.

"Of course not, Martha," said Mrs. Derinzy, raising her head and looking angrily at the nurse; "how could you ask such a ridiculous question?"

"It is no matter, he will know it soon enough," said Mrs. Stothard, quietly. "Well, he refused?"

"He did," said Mrs. Derinzy, again bursting into tears, "like a wicked and ungrateful boy as he is; he refused decidedly."

"Did he give any reason?" asked Mrs. Stothard.

"He said that he had other views and intentions," said Mrs. Derinzy. "He talked in a grand theatrical kind of way about some passion that he had for somebody, and his heart, and a vast amount of nonsense of that kind."

"He is in love with somebody else, then?" asked Mrs. Stothard, looking hard at her mistress.

"So I gather from what he said; but I wouldn't listen to him for a moment on that subject. I told him I would get his father to speak to him, and that I myself would speak to his friend Mr. Wainwright, who appears to me never to leave Annette's side."

"So much the better for the chance of carrying out your wishes," said Mrs. Stothard, grimly. "That is to a certain extent my doing; I knew that Mr. Wainwright would be appealed to in this matter, and I thought it advisable that he should have just as much influence with Annette as he has with Paul; not that I think you can in the least rely upon his recommending his friend to fall in with your views."

"You don't think he will?"

"I don't, indeed. Though he has given no sign, I should be very much astonished if he don't completely master the mystery of the girl's illness; and if so, it is not likely he would recommend this scheme to his friend without showing him exactly the details of the bargain proposed."

"Bargain, indeed, Martha!"

"It is a bargain and nothing else, as you know very well, and you and I may as well call things by their plain names. What do you propose to do now?"

"I told Paul I would give him a couple of months in which to think it over finally; at the end of that time we shall go to town for a few weeks, for I really believe Captain Derinzy will go out of his mind if we have not some change, and there will be no danger now in taking Annette with us. Then Paul will have had ample time to discuss it with Mr. Wainwright, and on his decision will of course depend how our future lives are to be passed."

"If Mr. Paul is still obstinate, you think there will be no further occasion to keep Miss Annette in seclusion?" asked Mrs. Stothard.

"Miss Annette will be nothing to me, then," said Mrs. Derinzy, "except that if she marries anyone else without Captain Derinzy's consent, she loses all her fortune; and I will take care that that consent is not very easily given."

"That is a new element in the affair," said Mrs. Stothard to herself, as she walked back to her room; "but not one which is likely to prove an impediment to my friend the philosopher here."